That's the issue.
[I should have mentioned that I had also read the job log,
before posting.]

Yes, that would have saved others some effort.

Hmm, when asking for help to "debug the issue", I thought that
it was obvious that reading the log was involved necessary but
not sufficient...

But there is no debugging involved here...

Both of these could happen with any Java version.

Or is this a hint for making Java 8 the minimum supported
version for the next release?

That is not a valid conclusion from the evidence.

How do you draw that conclusion?

Because there is no proof that the failure is caused by using Java
7

rather than because the test uses a specific version of the Java 7
JVM.
JVM crashes tend to be specific to particular implementations.
It any case, a test that fails with a JVM crash is not a failure of
the code being tested but of the JVM itself.

Sure. Never implied that the problem was in the Java code...

But you did imply that the problem was related to Java 7, which it is
not.

The negative publicity belongs to the specific Java 7 JVM which is
crashing.

Sure. Never implied anything else.

But you did imply that the problem was related to Java 7, which it is
not.

Commons Math should really be praised for exposing the bug.

And what will we do of it?
That was the "hint" referred to above: if there is no interest in
fixing that bug in a Java7 JVM, we should at least stop submitting
that job to Travis.
You are, of course, right that we do not have to target Java 8.
My point was: Is there anyone reading this interested in keeping
Java 7 compatibility?
And, if yes, then _those_ people should IMHO be interested in
fixing the problem reported here.

The obvious thing to try is to use a different Java 7 compiler.

I think this just shows that automated checks are only useful if it
is

clearly understood how the checkers measure success/failure.

I don't follow.

Travis is an automated check.
People who rely on the check need to know what success/failure means
to avoid being misled by the report.

[Or do you suggest that Travis should report
"success" because the code succeeded in crashing the JVM ;-) ].

I am saying that Travis is reporting failure against Commons Math
when

it is the JVM that failed.

The most that can be said of Math in this case is that the testing
was

incomplete, so its state is unknown.
(If the JVM had not crashed, the test might still have failed later)
The point is that Travis reports failure, but failure in this case
does not mean a problem with Math.

But where did you see that I implied there was a problem with Math?
All along, I asked whether someone knows how to fix Travis (what to
do, where to ask).
Thanks,
Gilles